November 28, 2005

The Wanderlust Dilemna :: PART 2

PRE-POST: If you haven't read the post below, you should do so before you read what is next.

So here's the dilemna: I want deep friendships with people I share life with. And I want to live in a neighborhood/city that I love. But I also want to be content, no matter where I am. I want more...but I don't want to suffer from terminal wanderlust.

Call it wanderlust, call is passion, call it idealism - on April 1st 2005 - Kari and I decided to go for it. We had an ideal (a vision if you will) of what could be for our lives, our friends and our city - and we we going to make decisions that would hopefully lead to our dream of doing life with our friends in an urban setting. If it didn't work...at least we knew we tried our best. And if it did? Read our ideals below:

// Most of all, we wanted to do life with our friends. We're still trying to figure out what this looks like, but we've made some steps. It means living close...like within a mile of one another. Close enough to walk or ride bike. Being close allows you to connect whenever you want. When you're this close, you can get together for one tv show. Most people plan ahead of time to get together and usually happens once a month at best. Doing life with friends means meeting each other at a bar after work for pool and drinks. This is the ultimate in doing life together...calling each other up on the way home for work to see if they (he or she) want to grab a bite at Jakes. It means taking care of each other...looking out for each other. This means more when you're in a new city trying to think through jobs and finances and how to register your car at the dreaded DMV. It means watching each others kids, going on weekend trips together, constantly borrowing money (and milk and dishes and movies) from each other. And so much more...

// We also wanted to live in the city. This means walking everywhere...or riding bike. Cars become a pain and are only used when absolutely necessary. Urban dwelling means developing places that become common in the thread of a week. Theatres, restaurants, bars, shops, gym, church, post office, etc (all within walking distance of course) - it means going back to these places so much that we get to know the employees from each local establishment. This is what immersing yourself into a neighborhood means.

Our dream is now many months in the making and is better than we could have imagined. Sure, we sometimes think about other locations - but life is here in LA...in Pasadena. And it was worth the sacrifice.

Forget terminal wanderlust. But cheers to those of us who still want something more out of life. May we find ourselves living in between this delicate balance.

I just got off the phone with one of our old IWUer's tonight, and we were in essence talking about "terminal wanderlust" without really giving it a definition. Great couple of posts. Thanks for not just throwing a question out there, but throwing some disclosure of yourself and how things CAN work out and how living life together isn't about fitting in, it's about where you belong. You obviously belong with the friends God's placed inyour life.